In Buffalo Days 
These primitive modes of slaughter have 
been described by earlier writers, and fre- 
quently quoted in recent years; yet, in all 
that has been written on this subject, I fail 
to find a single account which gives at all 
a true notion of the methods employed, or 
the means by which the buffalo were brought 
into the inclosures. Eye-witnesses have been 
careless observers, and have taken many 
things for granted. My understanding of 
this matter is derived from men who from 
childhood have been familiar with these 
things, and from them, during years of close 
association, I have again and again heard the 
story of these old hunting methods. 
The Blackfoot trap was called the pzskiin. 
It was an inclosure, one side of which was 
formed by the vertical wall of a cut bank, 
the others being built of rocks, logs, poles, 
and brush six or eight feet high. It was not 
necessary that these walls should be very 
strong, but they had to be tight, so that the 
buffalo could not see through them. From 
a point on the cut bank above this inclosure, 
in two diverging lines stretching far out into 
the prairie, piles of rock were heaped up 
183 
